Hello Forum , 
the short story is I have been sort of locked out from the upgrade cycle for a number of years due to running an older P 4 ( XP ) as my DAW  . This machine was very stable yet modest power wise ....Lets just say that my P 4 was not even close to meeting the system requirements of anything more than what I ran for all these years ...lol
 
Yesterday I picked up a new PC laptop that seems a little more robust that my old computer ....
 I 3 , Windows 8 ( 64 bit OS ? ) , 6 gigs of ram ...500 GB Hd ....
( probably modest by some peoples standards here , but hey it's the best I can do for now )
 
Today I got an e mail from Cakewalk stating that the upgrade to X3 would be $ 199 for me as a SONAR user .
 
OK I' ll admit it here  , I'm very exited about to prospect of finally being able to get back in the loop and up to speed as a Cakewalk user.
 
I have a few concerns as to how to go about maximizing my experience to switching over to X 3 systematically and frugally . 
 
I'm under the impression that I will need to base ,  store and stream my projects on an external HD that spins at 7500 as opposed to the internal ( 5200 ) does that sound right?
I might also be looking at the possibility of having to find another Audio SC USB interface  for my lap top .
my main DAW was PCI based , yet I do have a   Yamaha Audiogram 6 that works flawlessly w my older dual core I MAC ...
after searching around the Yamaha site for drivers for Windows 8 I'm left w the impression that they don't exist .  
 
To cut to the chase ,
I'm under the impression that a logical upgrade approach would be to get a hold of X 3 ....first , get familiar w the new features and U I .....
then solve the audio card issue and then pick up an external  drive for streaming .....
 
I'm open to hearing your suggestions  
 
Kenny
 
PS , I cant wait to change my sig ...Aye Carrumba what an eyesore .
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Kenny, my man, you are in for a treat, but be prepared for a considerable amount of head-scratching over the UI changes!
 
Your basic plan seems sound. I think the internal drive will likely work fine for the short term, despite the slow speed. So the main thing will be to get a good interface for it. I will leave it to others to make recommendations on that front, as I'm running a PCIe MOTU 2408 on a desktop.
 
Feel free to ping me with the inevitable "dumb" questions as they come up as your installing and learning X3.
 
Have fun!
 
Dave

Good luck Kenny!
 
I was last on Sonar 7 and am seriously thinking of upgrading.   I (and I'm sure others) will be interested in hearing how you feel about the upgrade.  Many who vocally dislike the X series regularly compare it to 8.5 which they seem to hold as Sonar's peak.  I am curious how those that last used Sonar pre-8.5 feel about X3.
 

So it looks like you are getting the price for Sonar X3 Producer from any version of Producer. If you use softsynths that is a huge bargain as you will be getting basically all of the synths you would have collected in version upgrade steps at one time. Also a bunch of plugin processors. You might consider paying extra for a boxed copy if you do not have access to mega-bandwidth for the download. You might check with Cakewalk customer service to see if the boxed upgrades being sold by their distributors like Sweetwater will qualify for this offer (i.e. will allow you to register based on your previous product).
 
I suspect that an external drive speed of 7200 will not be fully utilized unless there is a USB3 or eSATA  connection. For modest projects 5400 should work.
 
There is an excellent chance that the AudioGram6 drivers for Win 7-64 will work fine in Win 8. Many suppliers have not re-done their drivers for Win8 because there is no need to do so. Definitely give it a try before you buy new hardware.

brundlefly
Kenny, my man, you are in for a treat, but be prepared for a considerable amount of head-scratching over the UI changes!
 
Your basic plan seems sound. I think the internal drive will likely work fine for the short term, despite the slow speed. So the main thing will be to get a good interface for it. I will leave it to others to make recommendations on that front, as I'm running a PCIe MOTU 2408 on a desktop.
 
Feel free to ping me with the inevitable "dumb" questions as they come up as your installing and learning X3.
 
Have fun!
 
Dave

Hi Dave , 
it's real nice to be rapping with you again 
Yes , I'm putting it out there to find out how to approach what appears to be a lot of changes for me in UI , OS , and audio interfaces .
at this rate I'm thinking I'm gonna end up being modern day version of Rip Van Winkle this Halloween 
thanks for the offer Dave 
Kenny

I also started on Sonar 6 PE and had a hard time adapting to the "X" way of doing things. But X3 made some great strides for me with comping and the smart tool. You'll have to learn some stuff anew but overall I would say the experience is a lot better than it was at 6.

urock
Good luck Kenny!
 
I was last on Sonar 7 and am seriously thinking of upgrading.   I (and I'm sure others) will be interested in hearing how you feel about the upgrade.  Many who vocally dislike the X series regularly compare it to 8.5 which they seem to hold as Sonar's peak.  I am curious how those that last used Sonar pre-8.5 feel about X3.
 

Hi urock, 
 
I have been very happy with 6 PE , and my DAW has been super stable all these years .
I had  gotten left pretty far behind w the current state of hardware & software .....
I haven't pulled the trigger yet on X3 ...the thing is now I can justify the upgrade  ....it's all good ...
 
 
Kenny
 

Well, the nice thing about your particular situation is you didn't get accustomed to all the PRV tool customizability in Sonar 7 only to lose it in the X-series. 
 
Just keep in mind, if you go from a PCI interface to a USB interface, you'll get some additional latency.
 
The speed of the external drive still matters, as any time the disk spends seeking whatever data a program requests will be added to the time spent transferring that data over USB. That seek time is not insignificant. That said, I don't think it matters as much where you keep your projects as where you keep samples that you load. Audio clips in your project and, if need be, MIDI and other project data can be read in advance, as Sonar knows in advance when you'll need it. Samplers such as Kontakt, on the other hand, don't know in advance when you'll trigger a certain sample. To save on memory, some samplers stream part of the sample from disk. In Kontakt, there's a tweak for how much of a sample to store in memory and how much to stream. You can turn it up to compensate for any additional latency in streaming samples if you find it necessary. I think all of Cakewalk's built-in instruments load their samples in memory, so that shouldn't affect you.
 
Also, run the DPC Latency Checker, to check for drivers that cause DPC latency spikes. Since you got Windows 8, that checker will incorrectly show a constant latency of 1ms or so. That's fine. However, if you see spikes, look into disabling any WI-FI drivers or other drivers until the spikes go away. Otherwise, you might get engine dropouts.
 
As for getting with the UI, I'd say start by learning the basic shortcut keys, all the functions of the smart tool, and how to use the data picker to pick whether you want to edit an envelope on a track, a clip, or anything else. Hit "T" on the keyboard to bring it up. No more micro-targeting with the mouse. Btw, if you get the boxed version, there's a very dandy foldout smart tool and shortcut key reference. Keep it near your DAW for a while. I haven't yet seen the PDF version of that gem yet.
 

slartabartfast
So it looks like you are getting the price for Sonar X3 Producer from any version of Producer. If you use softsynths that is a huge bargain as you will be getting basically all of the synths you would have collected in version upgrade steps at one time. Also a bunch of plugin processors. You might consider paying extra for a boxed copy if you do not have access to mega-bandwidth for the download. You might check with Cakewalk customer service to see if the boxed upgrades being sold by their distributors like Sweetwater will qualify for this offer (i.e. will allow you to register based on your previous product).
 
I suspect that an external drive speed of 7200 will not be fully utilized unless there is a USB3 or eSATA  connection. For modest projects 5400 should work.
 
There is an excellent chance that the AudioGram6 drivers for Win 7-64 will work fine in Win 8. Many suppliers have not re-done their drivers for Win8 because there is no need to do so. Definitely give it a try before you buy new hardware.

Hi slartabartfast, 
Yes ,  the offer to upgrade from any version of SONAR Producer to X 3 is what has me very interested in taking action .
You do bring up some very good points on the synths and the plugs ...
it would be nice to get them all in one place during one installation .
 
Yes, I actually would prefer to buy this upgrade boxed ....
I have been on the fence for a long time and I was tempted to get X2 w out even having a machine to run it on just to save it for when I had a PC that met the minimum spec  . 
I would of had to download it on my Mac which happened to be my only internet computer and I don't know if that would have screwed up the installers ....still not sure about that one ? 
 
Yeah , I can tell you right now Windows 8 on a lap top w a realteck sound card sucks .....
I plug in my headphones , or external speakers via the mini headphone jack , first a dialog box shows up ,
I check it ....then it cuts out my phones after playing a bit and the sound stops working gggrrrrr...
I looked it up on line and a lot of people are having problems with that issue in Windows 8  ....
 
later on today I will try the Windows 7 drivers and see  if I can get my Yamaha Audiogram 6 to work .
it would be nice to use that interface in the mean time ..
then I can swing the X 3 w out having to worry too much about the money 
 
USB 3 ...i got one ....on the side ...yes an external HD is probably gonna be #3 on the list ...
 
thank you  for your sugestions , 
 
Kenny 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi Kenny,
Man it's been a while.
As others have said you're pretty much on the right track. As was always the case, the number of simultaneous inputs and outputs you need is largely what determines your sound card. Price will effect whether you go for RME on the higher side or something like the Roland or similar USB versions. USB is basically it for laptops these days unless you have a proven FireWire choice.

The Roland devices have a good rap for drivers and driver updates independent of Cakewalks future after Roland.

You'll probably find you can make do with a single drive for OS, Sonar and plugins even though it's on the slower side. Unless you can upgrade it to a faster drive the discussions mute in any case.

An external drive for Projects and samples isn't a bad idea. Whether you have 1 or 2 drives can be a matter of experimentation as you can always add another. Of course a lot depends on how many USB, eSATA ports, XPress card slots etc your laptop has for peripherals.

All that said, the jump in technology from Sonar 6 to X3 is enormous? 7, 8, 8.5, X1, X2 and now X3. That's about 7 years of software and hardware development. All the best.